1/13/2004

Bill Siegel sits in for Brotpen's broken leg in Smash Studio A for a hot jam.

It was a night that Rich Brotman couldn't attend as his leg is still on
the mend. Bill Siegel of www.Everlounge.com
fame was gracious enough to sit in for him on keys as well as singing a
few songs. It was a night where there were no guests in the newly
improved Studio A at Smash so it was just us five freaks to play the music
to ourselves. It seemed pretty special from the outset as most of
the songs we were playing were tighter than usual. Trister had his
Gentleman Jack out for all to sip on but it didn't seem to make too much
of an impact on our sloppiness. Almost everything we played seemed
better than usual.

Kev, Coffee and I worked on Slipknot before the jam
and Bill and I worked on it the night before at Carpetsteen, another in
the long list of Deadstein cover bands. In any case, the practice
seemed to have a positive result in the Help --> Slip Franklins was
much better than usual. While not perfect it was close, especially
the second portion of the Slipknot riffing that came after the Slipknot
jam. Good stuff to be a part of. Rhapsody in Red was excellent
until Trister broke his string during the end jam and wouldn't be there to
bail us on the Rhapsody riff. Nevertheless, it was smokin! We
played right up to the red light at 11:00 p.m. when I called a halt to the
Sugar Magnolia due to red light conditions. Smash was also kind
enough to respect the $47 credit they owed us from last week so the very
nice sounding Studio A even seemed like a bargain. It won't feel
that way next week when we are back to $47/hour. We also get through
our first Hava Nagila which was a bit of a lark but with a bit of practice
could turn into a real fun little jam. Shakedown was really good
even the jam at the end that we used to be so bad at. It's hard to
be more positive about a jam so I will contain it but it was a good
one. Hopefully Coffee got the kind tape of it all.

Kevin, Coffee-Bro and I met at the Fresco Taco where
I had my typical C-5. Almost as good as the Rhapsody. There
was little traffic getting in but the temperature was frigid..